The Writer

"More or less, yes" said the nerd smiling, happy that the two guys had finally understood what he was talking about.

"You’ve done a really good job," said the fat guy looking pleased.

"Yes, but we still haven’t understood its true function yet," replied the thin guy rather disappointed.

"I could hazard a guess which I think might be quite realistic," said the boy, softly.

“Well, what are you waiting for? Talk," replied the fat guy, moving within just a few centimetres of his nose.

"I think it’s a system to activate the self-destruct procedure of a spacecraft, as well as who knows how many other functions."

The two buddies looked at one another in amazement for an instant then, as if someone had just given him the most wonderful gift in the world, the larger of the two exclaimed "Please, tell me we’ve blown them up."

"Very probably the aliens will have had ample time to get to safety, but their vehicle might have come to a really bad end."

"Son, you’re a genius," exclaimed the big guy. Then he pulled a USB memory stick out of his pocket and added, "Put all the data you’ve got on this thing and then cancel everything. If we discover you’ve kept even a single byte..."

“I know, I know. You’ll make mincemeat out of me."

“Well done. I knew you were a smart guy."

The copy process only lasted a few seconds. Then, after removing the USB stick from his computer, the nerd held it out to the big guy who quickly snatched it out of his hands. Then, after also grabbing the strange object and putting them both in his right trouser pocket, he said to his partner in crime, "Let’s go old chap, perhaps our dreams are about to come true."

They had almost reached the threshold when the young man exclaimed, "Hey, aren’t you forgetting something?"

"What are you on about?” asked the tall skinny guy.

"Err… the rest of my money."

“Money?” replied the fat guy. "Thank the Lord we haven’t broken your neck" and he banged the door behind him.

Taurus constellation - Planet Kerion

At almost sixty-five light years from earth, the red giant named Aldebaran dimly illuminates a barren planet known by the name of Kerion. Its surface, which nowadays features only arid deserts, parched rocky landscapes, deep dry gorges and smooth plateaus, was not always like this. The planet began its slow decline about ten thousand years ago when, for reasons as yet unknown, the metallic fluid which constituted its core began slowly but inexorably to reduce its speed of rotation, causing a relative progressive reduction of its magnetic field.

Nowadays, Kerion’s atmosphere, once composed mainly of nitrogen and about twenty percent methane, is virtually inexistent. In fact, the harmful rays from its star, no longer shielded by the powerful planetary magnetic field, have gradually dissolved it and reduced it to about 0.1 percent of what it once was. Seas of liquid hydrocarbons used to occupy almost half the planet. Lakes of methane and countless expanses of iced water were dotted around the land above sea level and life flourished luxuriantly. But the catastrophic event apparently marked the destiny of Kerion. For millennia, its inhabitants tried to find a solution to restart its core but without success. Since the start of the slowing down process, they have also tried venturing into risky and extremely long interstellar voyages in search of a planet, similar to their own, to which they could move, but none of these missions has ever been successful.

When their vital resources were almost at an end, they became more or less resigned to their inevitable extinction when, one of the brightest minds on the planet proposed what for most of the population appeared to be an absolute folly: get rid of everything that could "die". The Kerian in question began a series of experiments which, within a few decades, led him to extract what we might call their "soul” from the material bodies of his fellow beings, thus releasing it from its bond, until then believed to be indissoluble, with the physical body. The very essence of some volunteers was separated from the living matter and implanted in new, fully mechanical structures. This gave birth to a new species, based entirely on cybernetic bodies but equipped with their own intelligence and that cosmic essence called soul or, more simply, life.

The separation of the souls of all the inhabitants was completed in just a few years but, given the scarcity of suitable materials for making the new cybernetic bodies, the transfer went ahead far too slowly. So, it was decided to organise the conservation of the "essences" in special dedicated egg-shaped casings, so as to be able to preserve them from destruction until their new exoskeletons had been made.

The first new beings created, now virtually immortal, therefore began a new saga of exploration of the cosmos searching, this time, for planets that could provide them with the necessary raw materials for the completion of the project. Ten were identified, even at distances of several hundred light years from their home planet, on which actual real laboratories were built where the resources of the planets were extracted and used on-site for the creation of new bodies. The presence of helium-3 which, through a complex system of nuclear fusion, would guarantee each individual new Kerian’s structure a virtually inexhaustible source of energy, was paramount. To reach all those so very distant planets, veritable interstellar portals were created through which the containers with the souls of the inhabitants and the necessary equipment were transferred to the assembly workshops. The creation of each individual body, the implanting of its soul and its complete activation required a very long procedure each time but, for them, time was no longer a problem.

"We’ve received a strange message from plant /\” announced the Kerian in charge of transmissions.

“What’s the message?” replied his commanding officer, who answered to the name of Supervisor RTY and whose body shape greatly resembled a kind of very long-legged arachnid with a massive body.

“Strangely it was interrupted before completion. This is what reached us,” and he transmitted the communication fragment in sub-light.

Laboratory attacked. We’re sending back ...

“We’re sending what? Attacked by who?"

“There wasn’t anything else. Since then communications with /\ have been interrupted."

“Let’s try to re-establish them as soon as possible and find out what’s happened” ordered RTY. "There are more than ten million souls in that laboratory waiting to be transferred.”

"I’m well aware of that," said the transmissions officer. "But, for the moment, the only thing I’m receiving is the signal from container (|) which is going through the intercommunication tunnel.”

"Perhaps that's what they’re sending back to us.”

“We’ll soon find out. It’ll be here in three hundred and twenty cens."

Tell-el-Mukayyar – The pyramids’ energy

“There they are, they’re coming,” said Petri indicating the three shuttles that were rapidly approaching the excavation site.

"Standard positioning,” Azakis ordered the pilots of the vehicles through his hand-held communicator.

The two aliens, together with Jack and Elisa, remained silent as they observed the shuttles as they completed the fast and precise landing manoeuvres.

"We should activate a dome-shaped forcefield to create an atmosphere more suited to our respiratory systems,” suggested Petri.

"I agree," replied Azakis. "I’m already fed up of wearing these damned things," and he pointed to the two little breathing tubes inserted in his nostrils.

"There’s too much oxygen here, for us. Perhaps it would have been better to organise our emergency base high up in the mountains."

"No. At least not for the time being. The forcefield will be more than sufficient until we get ourselves organised a little better."

"Ok, you're the boss," said Petri, emphasising the phrase with a kind of military salute like he had seen the terrestrial soldiers do.

“Shuttle two. Activate the containment dome,” said Azakis into his communicator.

Starting from the top of the central shuttle and betrayed only by a slight vibration in the air, a sort of almost invisible veil spread rapidly with a radius of about a hundred metres, forming a hemisphere-shaped hood which extended from the apex of shuttle two’s virtual pyramid straight down to sink into the desert’s sandy soil.

"That looks like a good job to me," said Petri satisfied.

"Why have they positioned themselves like that?" asked Elisa intrigued.

"Like what?" replied Azakis. “What do you mean?”

“The shuttles. The pyramids they’ve formed are almost in a straight line and positioned with one side facing south. The two most external ones are apparently aligned while the central one looks slightly more off-axis."

"You have an excellent spirit of observation" commented Azakis.

"The fact is they remind me greatly of something else."

“What exactly?” asked the Colonel who had suddenly shown great interest in the discussion.

"Have you ever been to Egypt?"

“A long time ago.”

"And have you visited the Giza plateau?"

"Obviously yes," answered Jack. Then, slapping himself on the forehead he exclaimed "but of course! They’re positioned just like the three largest pyramids."

"Cheops, Chephren and Mycerinus," pointed out the doctor.

"I don't know what you're talking about," said Azakis perplexed.

"Wait a minute,” Elisa answered. "I'll show you,” and she walked quickly towards the laboratory tent. She emerged less than a minute later carrying a large, well-thumbed book. As she drew near the other three, she quickly leafed through the pages. “Here we are. Look” and she held it out to the alien.

“Interesting… What are they?”

“Let me see,” said Petri, sliding the thick book from his companion’s hands. “Ah yes. I’ve seen this sort of construction. They’re like that one,” and he pointed to the Ziggurat behind the field. "But they must have been built by another people and in a different era.”

“Well done Petri. You’re right, of course. Since the day they were discovered, our scholars have been racking their brains to understand the reason why they were built and why they were arranged that way."

"But it’s very simple," said Petri flashing a beautiful smile. "Can you see those stars up there?" and he pointed to a constellation in the middle of all the others, in the space left by the setting sun.

“Yes, certainly. We call it the Orion constellation. It takes its name from the Greek demigod Orion" said Elisa. Then, as she traced its profile with her index finger in the clear desert air, she added, "If you join up its stars with a virtual line, the head, shoulders, belt and feet of a man appear. According to Greek mythology, Orion was a giant born with superhuman abilities, a mighty hunter who killed his prey with an unbreakable bronze sledgehammer. When the Greek hero died, he was placed among the stars for eternity."

"Your stories are always very evocative," said Petri enraptured. "However, from what the Elders have taught us, all the constructions of this type, and there are many scattered all over the earth, are linked to us.”

"You, aliens?"

"We ‘Gods’, who came down from heaven to start the human race” specified Petri.

“And wouldn’t you just have guessed that you had a hand in that too” blurted out Jack. "It seems as if everything we have done up to now is solely and exclusively down to you."

"Well, coming to think of it," commented Elisa, "I must say he does have a point.”

"I just wanted to say," added Petri quietly "that our shuttles are simply positioned like the three stars in your Orion "belt"."

"And so, the same would apply to the pyramids in Egypt?" asked Jack shocked.

“I’d say so.”

“So, the assumptions of our scientists were true,” said the doctor almost in a whisper. Then she held her chin between her thumb and forefinger and added, "However, I’ve still not understood the real reason for that arrangement."

“Simple my dear,” exclaimed Petri. “Energy.”

"You’ll have to explain this to me properly," replied the doctor, straightening her back and crossing her arms.

"Even we don’t know very much about it,” Petri hastened to clarify. "But it seems that, a pyramid-shaped object is able to generate a kind of positive energy that is beneficial to all living things that are close to it. Obviously, the larger the object, the more energy it generates. Then, if it’s also in connection with a heavenly body or better still, with a series of them, everything is amplified in an exponential way."

"But what kind of energy are we talking about?" asked the archaeologist.

"Like I said, it’s not clear even to us. Many of our Experts have studied it but we still don't have reliable data.”

"Finally, something that even you don't know," said Jack satisfied. “That’s almost a miracle."

"There are lots of things we don't know, my friend. On a global scale, we are only slightly more evolved than you. There are so many mysteries in the universe. You didn't think we knew them all did you?"

"I confess, for a moment, I really thought you did."

“There are concepts that we will never understand. We must resign ourselves to that."

"But we’re intelligent beings, imaginative, curious. What can prevent us from understanding?”

Then Azakis entered the debate saying, "It's just a question of levels of perception.”

"This I really haven’t understood," exclaimed Elisa puzzled.

"Although you may think that our brains are who knows how "evolved", there are some dimensions so far away from our structures of thought that we cannot even begin to make suppositions, at least with our current knowledge."

"I'm sorry but I'm not following you."

"Take a cell of your liver as an example,” continued Azakis patiently. “Imagine it intent on reasoning about its status, about its work, about the cells close to it. Who knows how many times it will have tried to understand what's beyond that reality it experiences. Will there be other groups of cells? Will they be like me? Perhaps it will also have tried to postulate the presence of a God. It will also have tried to get in touch with him following goodness knows what complex rites, praying for his intercession in solving its daily problems. But who is its God? Your gallbladder? Your heart? You? What perception can a cell ever have of your liver, of you, its God? How could it ever come into direct contact with you? And if it does not perceive you, could it ever perceive me? And the sea, the sky, the sun, the galaxy... This is what I mean by different levels of perception.”

"Blimey,” exclaimed Elisa, as if she had just come out of a trance. "I really hadn't ever thought of this... So, we might never be able to contact beings of higher levels or imagine what could be outside the dimension in which we live."

“That’s not necessarily true. It would seem, including thanks to the peculiar energy we were talking about earlier released by pyramids, that some people may already be able to jump one or more levels. Unfortunately, even our knowledge in this very particular matter, is still very limited."

"Fascinating," whispered the doctor completely enraptured. "So, you too are in search of your God."

"Actually, it’s a topic we’ve been studying for a long time."

"And, if even you haven’t worked this whole thing out, just imagine how much hope we have.”

"Often the most important intuitions appear randomly" sentenced Azakis. "Our races are very similar and I’m sure that both ourselves and you, have the same chances of discovering how this mysterious mechanism works, through which we could get in touch with higher beings.”

Petri clasped his hands behind his back and began to slowly walk around in circles. He thought for a few seconds then added, "But, actually, if the cell mentioned before doesn’t do its work well, there would be problems for me and I would realise. Basically, this is also a form of contact, isn't it?"

"You're right. All of us are here for a very specific purpose and we should simply try to do our work as well as we can. This is precisely why on Nibiru, from the moment of our birth, our Educators strive to identify what our main peculiarity is. Each of us has one, as I think you terrestrials also do. The biggest problem is to discover it and then make the very most of it. As well as giving us all the basic knowledge, the Educators, do precisely this. It is they who, after carefully analysing our strengths and weaknesses, direct us towards the group which comes closest to our personal aptitudes such as the Artists, or the Artisans, or the Experts and so on. We don’t have to do anything other than always give the maximum in the activity in which we excel and complete the path that was thought out for us."

"Okay guys," intervened the Colonel. "How about we just forget about all this philosophical talk and seriously get down to trying to solve the small problem we have right now?"

"True" added Petri. "In fact, while you ‘brainiacs” were discussing the mysteries of the universe, I downloaded the data from your personal recorder.”

"What are you talking about?" asked Azakis perplexed.

"To tell the truth I’d forgotten it as well,” continued the Expert. "But, before leaving, I activated a personal recording system which would have stored all the actions of every member of the crew.”

“Yes... yes I remember now. You’re talking about this little thing that you fixed here behind me, aren't you?” replied the captain, as, twisting his torso, he tried to point to a little black rectangle fixed to his light grey belt.

“Precisely old chap.” And you can't imagine how well it worked. I managed to find out what happened to your remote-control system."

"Oh, really? And what did happen to it?”

"You’ll never guess!"

Pasadena, California – The News

"And now, what are we going to do with this little trinket?" asked the thin, lean one, as he climbed into the driver’s seat of a brand new, bright red, Chevrolet Corvette.

"Are you talking about the car or the alien thing?" asked his chubby crony as, with great difficulty, he also tried to get into the fast sports car.

"I was talking about the remote-control, although I still haven’t understood why you decided to buy a car like this, seeing as you can't even get into it."

"I’d say you’re also in a little difficulty, my dear tall, thin lamp post."

"Precisely. Couldn’t we have got something a little more comfortable for both of us?"

"When you put your foot down on the accelerator of this beast, the reason will be clear immediately," and after slamming the door a little too violently, he added, "Come on, let’s go."

"Go where?"

"Let’s go back to base. I want to analyse the data our nerd friend gave us carefully and discover all the secrets of this bit of alien kit."

"Now you’re not going to tell me, you know more than him. The guy seemed very knowledgeable to me."

"I have to say the boy did an excellent job, but I’ve also done my research."

"What are you talking about?" asked the thin guy, perplexed.

"What do you think I’ve been doing every night for the last month, in front of the computer, while you snored like a bear in hibernation?"

"Looked at porn sites?"

"Where oh where did I find you? I often wonder that of late, you know?"

"It’s fate that united us,” replied the thin guy as he floored the accelerator, and the Corvette leapt forward leaving two black tyre marks on the tarmac.

"Hey, slow down," yelled the fat guy, as he was thrown back against the seat by the sudden acceleration. "You’d better not destroy it immediately. I’ve only paid the first two instalments."

"Wow," exclaimed the skinny guy. "It goes like a missile. This little gem is a real beast."

"I knew you’d like it. But now, try not to run that little old lady over," said the big guy, indicating a frail lady who was slowly crossing the road. "Let’s try and let her enjoy a little more of her pension."

"Don't worry my friend. You’re in good hands," answered the guy at the wheel while, with an abrupt manoeuvre, he narrowly missed the little old woman.

“Yeah right,” exclaimed the big guy. "You almost tore the clothes off her back." Then he turned around and seeing the old lady who, shaking her handbag, was shouting all sorts of things at him, added "Another series of insults like that and it’ll be you who won’t be enjoying your pension," and he broke out into a peal of laughter.

"Leave it. I’m not superstitious."

"You should be. What if she practices voodoo? You might find yourself jumping around like a cricket while the old woman sticks pins in the butt of the little doll that represents you."

"Will you just stop all this load of bollocks and instead tell me what we’re going to do with that thing?"

“Okay, okay. Don’t get worked up. I was just kidding, no?" The burly guy placed the alien object on the palm of his left hand again and said, "The nerd might well know a lot of people but, I can assure you, I used channels for my research which he certainly hasn’t had the possibility to access."

"Sometimes you scare me."

"Do you want to see something?"

"Well, it depends what."

"In the various files that I had the opportunity of consulting regarding this alien technology, I discovered that this little object, as well as blowing up spaceships, can do a lot of other things that are just as nice."

"But are you sure it really has worked?" asked the guy at the wheel, as he took a bend at full speed, slamming the passenger against the door.

"Hey, can you just slow down? That’s all we need, the police chasing us and arresting us again."

"I’ve had an idea," said the thin guy. "Turn the radio on."

"Do you think this is the time to start listening to little songs?"

"No, of course not, you idiot. Put the news on."

Although somewhat dubious, the fat guy decided not to ask any more questions and, having put the radio on, began to scroll through the various stations until he found one that was transmitting world news.

“After breaking into the central bank, the four criminals with masked faces, holding guns and automatic rifles, ordered the employees to fill the bags with cash. The entire operation lasted a little less than five minutes. When the police arrived, the robbers had already got away. Checkpoints have been set up on all routes into the city."

"What do we care about this stuff?" asked the fat guy, more perplexed than ever.

"Patience my friend, patience."

“And now let’s return to our headline news. There appear to be some interesting updates. Let’s go over to our Washington correspondent, Fred Salomon."

“Thanks Lisa. I’m in the conference room at the White House where the President has just arrived and is about to release an official statement. Let’s listen to him live.”

A few moments of silence followed and then the unmistakable voice of the President of the United States of America came through the Corvette’s powerful speakers.

“Ladies and gentlemen, first of all thank you for joining us today. Unfortunately, the news I have just received is not at all reassuring. It seems that the unusual flash, seen almost an hour ago on the moon, was indeed caused by a huge explosion and that it did in fact involve the spacecraft of our alien friends. We still do not know if they managed to escape. A further announcement will follow as soon as we have more news in this regard. Thank you.”